BARRE — A divided School Board narrowly agreed this week to invest another $10,000 in what may ultimately prove to be the Granite City version of the road to nowhere.

Though the gate for the emergency access road was purchased last year, its proposed location hasn’t yet been nailed down, one permit hasn’t been obtained, others may be needed but haven’t been applied for, and the contractor who agreed to build the road free of charge is about to leave town.

School commissioners had some, but not all, of that information Monday night when they voted, 5-3, to spend another $10,000 on a project one board member described as “… a road we may never use.”

School Commissioner John Steinman might have been more right than even he knew, given fresh uncertainty about how — not where — the road will be built.

Board members were told Monday night that Luck Brothers — the New York firm hired to complete the North Main Street reconstruction project — would be building the road as soon as the school district engineers it and obtains a state storm water permit.

However, Luck Brothers’ spokesman Chris Kempne said while that offer was on the table — for months — it isn’t any longer.

“We’ll be gone before they get their permits,” Kempne said, suggesting the last conversation he had with anyone from the school district was back in June.

Kempne said Luck Brothers would have followed through on its offer to build the road if the school officials had moved more swiftly.

That didn’t happen.

One of the reasons for the delay was because the favored route for the road — one that would have its outlet on Allen Street — was “vetoed” by neighboring landowner Gordon Booth.

On Monday board members, who had previously agreed to invest in the permitting and design of that road using money from the school’s long-term maintenance fund, were told the new plan would be to construct a road skirting the large playing field that is located on the north side of the school.